Data mining system, method and apparatus for industrial applications

• US 20020178159A1
• Filed: 03/12/2002
• Published: 11/28/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 02/06/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens Industry Incorporated (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Siemens Energy & Automation Incorporated (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: OʼBrien, Christopher
• Granted Patent: US 7,228,310 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/6
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2465 Query processing support for facilitating data mining operations in structured databases
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

A data mining system directed to industrial applications gathers data remotely from a plurality of industrial plants or sites and makes the gathered data available over a network to a user running a data mining application or on-line analytical process means to generate and, if desired, visualize results. Access to a service of this nature may be made available in connection with an on-line service, such as a website, that also provides access to industrial products and services. Subscribers to the on-line service, who may be charged a fee to subscribe, may be given an incentive to continue their subscription in the form of an offer of free or reduced-cost access to the above-described data mining system during their on-line service sessions.

Claims

1. A data mining system for providing analysis services directed to industrial control-related data originating at a plurality of client industrial systems, the data mining system in communication with the plurality of client industrial systems, the data mining system further accessible over a network by a user, the data mining system being associated with a data warehouse and comprising at least one data mining application, the system comprising:

data collection means adapted for collecting data from the plurality of client industrial systems;

a data warehouse coupled to the data collection means and adapted for storing data collected from the plurality of industrial systems;

on-line analytical processing means coupled to the data warehouse and adapted for analyzing industrial systems data; and

user-interface means for presenting to the user the results of on-line analytical processing.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein said on-line site on the internet.

3. The system according to claim 1, further comprising a program application for data mining said data warehouse.

4. The system according to claim 3, wherein the data mining program application data mines efficiency of plant equipment.

5. The system according to claim 4, wherein the data mining program application generates a best practices chart from the data regarding the industrial application.

6. The system according to claim 5, wherein the industrial application relates to the efficiency of an industrial boiler.

7. The system according to claim 1, further comprising a program application for segregating the data warehouse into one or more data marts, each data mart having applicability with a different industrial application.

8. The system according to claim 7, wherein said program application offers to the user data mining access to one or more of said data marts.

9. The system according to claim 1, further comprising OLAP software as the data mining application.

10. The system according to claim 7, wherein said program application segregates the data marts are segregated according to a cross-section of equipment having similar characteristics.

11. The system according to claim 10, wherein said program application segregates according to isothermal maps.

12. The system according to claim 10, wherein said program application segregates according to dissimilar features.

13. The system according to claim 10, wherein said program application segregates further comprises uploading the parameters by which the data marts are segregated.

14. The system according to claim 3, further comprising a program application for continuously scanning the clients industrial processes to compile the data warehouse.

15. The system according to claim 14, further comprising a program application for reporting the data mining results in real time to the client.

16. The system according to claim 14, further comprising a program application for scrubbing the data when scanned by eliminating header data.

17. The system according to claim 5, further comprising a program application for generating a best practices chart plots an efficiency curve.

18. The system according to claim 5, further comprising a program application for taking a snap shot of the best practices of a particular industrial application at any moment in time.

19. The system according to claim 18, wherein said program application takes several snap shots of the best practices for a plurality of moments in time for said particular industrial application.

20. The system according to claim 19, further comprising a program application for generating a report based on a study of the best practices across the plurality of moments of time to provide the user with trends information.